The Imprint
by Zille
Summary: SPOILERS! And not shipper fic. Many people have died for Harry. But this time, he finds a familiar face upon a familiar wall, and realises that he is not alone after all. Tribute to a certain character.


The Imprint 

This story continues where the Half-Blood Prince left off, it is now right after the funeral. This story is a tribute to Dumbledore, and a way for a desperate fan to keep believing that he is not really gone.

JK Rowling owns everything, all rights reserved.

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Harry found himself once more standing on the moving staircase leading up into the Headmaster or –mistress' office. When he reached the top, he knocked a few times – no answer. After half a minute of debating with himself, he decided to enter.

He needed to find out everything he could about the Horcruxes, needed to copy it, or take it if possible, before it was too late…

The door opened, and revealed the strange-looking room – and revealed it to look unlike Harry had ever seen it before. No longer were the shelves full of strange, funny little objects, neither the ones Harry himself had smashed more than a year ago nor the ones he hadn't. Instead the shelves were full of books, quills, parchment… regular things, Harry thought. He did not know if he was surprised or not. After all, he had not expected the room to always look the same. He had seen it on one previous occasion looking quite different, when he had entered Tom Riddle's diary in his second year, and seen the office while it had been inhabited by Headmaster Dippet. He was dead, too, Harry thought, and the world had gone on. Being inside this office had made him miss Dumbledore more than Harry had thought possible, all he wished for right then was for Dumbledore to appear, greeting Harry, perhaps asking,

"And what, might I ask, are you doing in the Headmistress' office quite unattended, Harry?"

Harry whipped around, not believing his own ears… and saw the portrait of Professor Dumbledore hanging on the wall, amongst the other previous headmasters and headmistresses…

"I… I…" Harry said, not knowing whether to explain himself or not. He did not know what to do with himself at all, should he cry or laugh or…?

"It is quite alright," Dumbledore's picture said, smiling. "I had expected you to come, actually."

"Dumbledore…" Harry said in awe. He had not thought of the picture, he had thought Dumbledore gone like Sirius…

"Professor Dumbledore, Harry," Dumbledore corrected, making the slightest of nods with his head.

"So… so it is you, Sir?" said Harry. "You… you are here- there, speaking to me, and it is really you…"

"Well, yes and no Harry, actually I would say I was neither here nor there… but it is a complicated matter, surely. But Harry," Dumbledore said sadly, "I am not Albus Dumbledore. That man is dead. All I am is an imprint, one of many I daresay, counting all the chocolate cards."

"But…" Harry persisted, "You are here, I mean there, you talk, you laugh, the Fat Lady even drinks with her friend Violet… I know you are dead, but now you are there right? Not like a ghost, but real, just… within the picture…" he paused, not knowing what to say, or think, or do…

"Ghosts are imprints too, Harry," Dumbledore said quietly.

"I mean," said Harry, more determined, "You think, right? You have feelings, you know everything Dum- you, used to know, you will remember this conversation in ten minutes, and think about it, draw conclusions from it, right?"

After a long silence, Dumbledore replied, "Actually I will probably be sound asleep within ten minutes. I have now come to realise why all these portraits," he indicated his neighbours, "always sleep so much. Being a Headmaster or a Headmistress is a terribly exhausting job." He smiled. "But I suppose you are right to a large extent, Harry. I mean, I remember everything of my life, and I remember my life as a portrait too, if that is the correct term to use. But so would I have if Professor Dumbledore had not died. I am an imprint, Harry, everything he was, in thoughts and emotions, and appearance. But I am not Albus Dumbledore. Merely a one-dimensional copy."

"A picture," Harry said automatically, and realised how accurate that actually was.

"But I feel like him," Dumbledore's image said, "If it helps at all."

"It is not supposed to help me," Harry said angrily. "I just… I want you to be alive!"

"I know, Harry," Dumbledore said, again looking sad. After a long pause, in which he apparently contemplated something, he said, "I did not wish to die."

Harry looked up, stunned, at this confession. "But I thought…"

"I was not afraid," Dumbledore said. "When you reach a certain age, you know you have lived your best years and do not fear what comes next," he continued, "But I must admit to you Harry, that despite what I may have told you in that dreadful cave, I didn't want to die just yet. I had things to do… I had people to protect." He looked at Harry again, even more sadly. Harry, though he tried with all his might to stop it, felt his eyes well up. He refused to let the tears spill, however. But Dumbledore noticed. "Oh, my dear boy," he said, and went up, up to the edge of the frame. Harry, who had been walking towards Dumbledore too, also froze in his steps.

Harry was if possible even more crestfallen than before. Dumbledore had reached out for him, had wanted to comfort him, pat his arm… but he could not. This time Harry actually could not keep his tears from falling.

"Harry," Dumbledore said, "I know everything must seem overwhelming to you now, you are suddenly alone-"

"Why did you have to keep trusting Snape?" Harry asked, half angrily and half desperately. "I… I can't… I saw it, Sir, I saw you! Why did you keep me from helping you, why didn't you make a run for it, why did you have to drink that sodding potion?" Harry asked all this very quickly, he had been keeping them for so long, and had believed he would never get an answer…

Dumbledore seemed suddenly far away in distant memories, then abruptly seated himself in his armchair, which looked quite comfortable. "Sorry Harry," said Dumbledore. I just remembered I had ordered a packet of Acid Pops a week ago, they never came… I wonder if they will not be delivered back to the shop or if some hungry student will… or perhaps Minerva will take them. But then again, she was never one for sweets… not that Acid Pops have any resemblance to something sweet…"

Harry looked at Dumbledore's portrait incredulously. Here he was, having just died, and he was thinking about sweets.

Dumbledore, at Harry's look, quickly got back on track. "Sorry Harry," he repeated. "But where to begin? I suppose… yes, the potion. As I told you in the cave, I knew Tom and his methods. I suspected that pouring the potion out onto the ground would probably only have resulted in it reappearing in the basin, as you proved when you attempted to magic water into the goblet. Yes, Harry, I do remember, unfortunately. You did well, my boy," he added. "Don't ever doubt you did the right thing. You didn't kill me, Harry."

Harry looked away. "Didn't I?" he asked, his voice emotionless. "Don't I cause the death of all the people around me, all the people I love? You told me that my greatest strength was to love, that I could defeat Voldemort because he doesn't understand it, but he is killing or having killed everybody around me! Even forcing me to… to keep the people I truly love safe…" he broke off, and he could almost smell the flowery scent he had given up, along with the rest of her.

"Harry!" Dumbledore said sharply, making Harry look up. "Listen to me. I told you already how important it is for you to love. I know as much Harry, that if you cut yourself off from your friends… you will lose. As we have seen on numerous occasions and as I am sure you must now have realised, they are your greatest strenght."

"I will not sacrifice any more of them to save myself!" Harry almost shouted. "My parents, Sirius, now you… Professor, I can't handle any more death, I don't want it, any of it! It surrounds me, and all I am doing is pushing others in front of me to shield me from it, and when they succumb to it I just grab another, and another… but in the end, Sir, all that will be left is me, and I can't bear to see more people die for no good reason…"

"Then you must kill Voldemort," Dumbledore said from his painting. "If you do so Harry, none of the people that sacrificed themselves to save you will have died in vain. Harry," he said much more kindly, "I am very touched you consider myself one of… your people. You must know how deeply I felt for you, and if the opportunity came I most certainly would have seen you live rather than me… but I have to tell you now that I did not sacrifice myself for you. Yes, I drank the potion and you did not, but in all fairness I was the oldest of us, and I had brought you here – and the potion, I believe, would not have killed me. If only Severus… and speaking of that, Harry, I sent a curse at you didn't I, to save you, yes, but not so I would die instead of you. As I told you I had no intention of dying. Nor had I any intention of seeing you fight a horde of Death Eaters and young Mr. Malfoy to protect me, though. When Severus came, I thought I was safe… I thought I was safe until the moment the killing curse was uttered from his mouth. Harry, please do not blame yourself for my death. Nor Sirius'. He did not jump in front of you to take the killing blow, did he? He would have, undoubtedly, just as I would. But he died from Bellatrix' Lestrange's hands, far away from you. You did not cause either of our deaths. Deaths happen Harry, and there is no Life without it. You must understand this." He peered at Harry closely, over his half-moon spectacles which Harry had seen not long ago lying askew across his face. "The war is raging. People will die. And as much as you now blame yourself for the deaths that have already happened, how will you feel coming back to the Burrow one day, finding it Marked, and having to live knowing what you never had because you thought you were protecting her?"

Harry's eyes were once again full of tears, he stared at Dumbledore, and felt as much respect for the old man as he had ever felt. "How do you do that?" he asked with a ghost of a smile. "How do you know what is on my mind?"

"Magic," said Dumbledore, smiling himself.

"Sir," Harry said suddenly, his smile faltering. "I have to… I have to tell you something. The necklace… the one we went to get, it…"

"It is a fake." Dumbledore said gravely. Harry did a double-take.

"You knew?" he asked incredulously.

"I guessed," said Dumbledore simply. "Even in my weakened state I could feel something was wrong. So what was it then?"

Harry held up the necklace.

"Ah," Dumbledore said quietly.

"There was a note," Harry said quickly, because the disappointment in Dumbledore's face was almost too much to bear. He clumsily opened the locket and took out the note, unfolded it and showed it to Dumbledore's picture. Dumbledore studied it for a while, then silently repeated the initials, R.A.B.

"Well," said Dumbledore, "At least it gives us something to go on, doesn't it?" he said, and Harry's face lit up instantly.

"You mean, you are going to… you'll be… can you… I mean…?"

"Of course I will help you Harry," said Dumbledore. "I will also thank you, for making me appreciate this strange, one-dimensional existence. I really feel like I am here. I am not sure I fully understand the concept of these images," he admitted. "I must admit I never devoted much time to study the subject…" he paused. "But now, let us turn our minds to figure out the mystery of this R.A.B." Dumbledore smiled at Harry, and Harry noticed for the first time the twinkle in his eye, which he had been so sure he would never see again. Twinkles could not be painted into peoples' eyes. Harry smiled more brightly, because he had suddenly realised that, no matter what Dumbledore said about imprints, this was indeed him, and Harry would not be alone after all.

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So what do you think? I might do a continuation of this, with more Ginny in it, Dumbledore having reminded Harry of his need to love… he seemed to have forgotten that as he broke with Ginny, grr arr. I was thinking of making this the first part of a book-seven-series, as I have some strange ideas as to what exactly Harry, Ron and Hermione are going to travel around doing… but I don't think I have the time. This fic had to be done though, my tribute to Dumbledore, and my way of admitting that I can't fully comprehend the fact that he's gone – he was not supposed to die, and I have never felt this way about a fictional character before. It felt like losing a real person close to me, and all that is, is appreciation of JK's writing. Please r/r if you have time.


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